PS: Possible Spoilers : Avengers Infinity Wars

WHETHER IT IS GOOD TO HAVE DISCUSSED AND SPOILED OR NOT TO HAVE SPOILT AT ALL?

Most of you already know my commitment to being spoiler free. Each and every review on my blog is absolutely ‘spoiler-free’ even the shitty ones like Baji (Don’t bother googling if you can’t remember, it’s not worth it). However, my second biggest commitment (marriage comes close though) is also to theorizing. I always have fun with my other short segment called Judgemental movie reviews, in which I review a movie without actually watching it and ask you all to tell me how much of its true or not. But that’s mostly for the movies I don’t really care about.

 I also love speculating and debating about upcoming movies I am excited for.  In a world of sequels and huge cinematic universes, speculation is a part and parcel of these movies. Curiosity builds excitement and sometimes there is nothing as satisfying as seeing some of your predictions become true on screen (having the movie exceed them in a good way is even better though). However, in a world of superstars accidentally tweeting plots, online leaks, over-exposed trailers, the art of expert speculation has been limited to merely googling shit…just like the art of knowledge and opinions. Earlier you had to, you know… put in actual effort and spend time researching and then formulating your own theories. But with the growing exposure to by-the-moment on set information…it’s becoming too easy. Any dumb-schmuck can sit down and pass on leaked information.

However, I still believe speculation is an art. To carefully look at all the plot points, sometimes deliberate clues in a story and use your own experience and skills to speculate about the next movie (particularly with respect to comic book movies) is a favourite pastime for me. Though in the interest of protecting against spoilers, I have mostly kept those theories to myself. Also most of those theories have been (sometimes sadly) proven to be right.  But then getting it right is never the goal. It never was. Starting a conversation, analyzing a movie for sub-text and clues and then passing on your ideas to those who wish to hear them is the great thing here. Sometimes fan theories are much more interesting than the movie and many a times, fan theories have been genuinely accepted by the creators themselves and also incorporated in the stories as well. Hence, speculation is still a fun thing to do.

The reason again to start this segment was that after I have hinted about or talked amongst my close friends regarding several plot points of a movie – I have been told that I should put them in my reviews as well. So here is my new segment called   ‘P.S.- POSSIBLE SPOILERS’

As the name goes, I ll be discussing storylines of hotly awaited upcoming movies based on my own analysis. These are merely theories and again getting it right is never the goal. Also, these could potentially be spoilers, so in case you want to keep your excitement for the movies yet to be released feel free to look away right now. But if you like reading about some interesting theories, lets dive right in.

P.S. - POSSIBLE SPOILERS

AVENGERS INFINTIY WARS 2 OR AVENGERS 4 (CALL IT WHATEVER YOU WISH)

The context -

Regardless of if you are a Marvel or a DC fan, regardless of if you are a casual movie goer, Avengers: Infinity Wars was one of the most hotly anticipated movies of ALL time. A movie with a build-up of almost 8 years. You can read my spoiler free review of it here (insert link)

The reason why the movie managed to capture the fancy of many people was we got to see something we hadn’t seen ever in a superhero movie in a long time. Thanos, the big baddie who for almost 14 movies has been after the famous Infinity stones –  each containing a cosmic force from the beginning of the universe- finally gets his hands on all of them. The Infinity stones contain the powers  of Space, Time, Reality, Power, Mind and Soul. Until this movie we are not sure of Thanos’ purpose for getting the stones. We assume that it’s the usual mega-villain purpose of ‘Conquering the universe’.  But Thanos’ has a much deeper purpose than that. He has seen that the universe’s resources are finite and its increasing population isn’t. He merely wants to bring balance to the universe by carrying out a universe level genocide. An impartial dispassionate one. He wants to bring all of the stones together to use their cosmic-level power to painlessly make half of the universe’s population disappear. All of the avengers and related marvel characters like Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, Spiderman and Dr. Strange get together to stop him. But unlike a normal comic book movie where they all get together and manage to stop the villain before he executes the plan, things go a bit differently.

What happens in the last 5-10 mins is some of the most stunned silences I have ever felt in a theatre. Spiderman, Black Panther, Bucky a.k.a the Winter Soldier, Nick Fury, Falcon, Dr. Strange – and many others just disappear.  Vision is dead. Although Thor manages to stab Thanos but Thanos snaps his fingers at the last moment to make his wish come true. We are left with a post-credit scene of Nick Fury messaging female super-hero Captain Marvel (whom we’ll get to see in an upcoming movie) before disappearing and that’s it.

All the powerful sorcerers are gone, the space geniuses are gone, Loki is dead, Odin had already died in Thor: Ragnorak. Thanos might also be dying and the Infinity stones he used look like they have lost their power. The Avengers have no way of avenging this grave scenario….

Unless if you really give it a thought.

The Key-

Having read and thought about enough sci-fi stories involving multiple realities and time-travel, let me tell you that the problem is always the answer. If Barry Allen a.k.a The Flash has travelled back in time to create a problem, he can always go back to solve it. That’s the thing with multiple realities and time-travel, once you bring them into an equation then no problem is an absolute certainty. Comic books (both DC and Marvel) have been doing this for ages and if you have read or watched any animated movies regarding story lines like Flashpoint Paradox (The best Flash story ever), Crisis on Infinite Earths (DC), DC Rebirth, DC Injustice, Days of Future Past (Marvel) or the original Infinity Gauntlet storyline, you know that altering timelines or realities is like planning a Europe tour for comic book characters. Just that this is the first time we are seeing this on the big-screen, that too after such a grand setup. That was brilliance on part of Marvel, Kevin Feige and the Russo Brothers to bring that concept to the big screen and especially leave that as a cliffhanger.

Even though I haven’t read the Infinity Gauntlet story-line , I can sort of speculate as to how they are going to go about this here and the reasons for them going about it like that. I won’t want to read that storyline nor give a synopsis of it here…I am gonna theorize this based on the knowledge and the set-up provided by the MCU movies and the real-life issues affecting those decisions. Based on what we know from the movies, pay attention to the following clues-

Me calculating all possible theories

1.       Dr. Strange- Dr. Strange is not only one of two actors in the same movie to brilliantly portray Sherlock Holmes, but is also a master sorcerer. He is a master of mystic arts and holds the time stone in an amulet he wears. He is also smart and had used that time-looping power to defeat an immortal demon in his solo movie. He can also play with reality and create illusions. In this movie, while Iron Man, Spidey and the Guardians of the Galaxy are on Titan waiting for Thanos to arrive, Dr. Strange looks forward in time and comes up with the odds of 1426543 to 1 of them winning this war. When Thanos arrives and they almost manage to defeat him, (fuck Star Lord) Dr. Strange- sworn protector of the time stone and the Earth Realm- hands over the time stone to Thanos before dying to stop Thanos from killing Iron Man. Before dying he says to Iron Man “It was the only way”. What that definitely means is that the 1 scenario in which they win the war, somehow involves Thanos getting the time stone anyway or Iron Man staying alive. Dr. Strange gives away the time stone so that that may happen.

 

2.       Iron Man- Although Iron Man in the comic books was never a central character or even that popular, one of the main reasons for the MCU’s popularity is Robert Downey Jr.’s fantastic portrayal of Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man. He is the central character of all of the group ones like Age of Ultron, Avengers 1 or Civil War.  If Marvel had killed him off inspite of him being just a 50 year old man in a metal suit against space wizards and gods, then the fan backlash would have been too harsh. (Although killing him off and bringing him back would have been the most fucking awesome thing to do..but hey Marvel isn’t DC). So they kept him alive. Thanos even acknowledges him and that’s also a clue as to if they kept him alive, you know he is central in bringing things back in line.

3.       Ant-man – In all of this we never get to see Antman or where he is. Although we are getting a Antman sequel in July, it’s surprising as to how they‘ll string together the events after half the universe is gone. Maybe as per the time line it happens at the same time as the Thanos battle and ends when that battle is over. Antman single handedly had the power to defeat Thanos. Everyone has their theories from him becoming ant sized crawling over to the Infinity Gauntlet (the glove worn by Thanos to bring together all the stones) and expanding to a 100 ft to get the glove off him. Some have suggested he could have done the same by crawling into Thanos’ anus.

Pick whatever theory you like, the fact the he wasn’t there means that he’ll be a key character in the sequel. Also, remember that he can reduce to sub-atomic size…that could also mean he has access to quantum universes/ multiple realities. Perhaps, we ll get more clues in the Antman and Wasp movie.

4.       Captain Marvel – Putting in an entire history of Captain Marvel here is not possible. (go wiki that) But in short she is a human who has alien powers. She may not have time travel or reality altering powers, but she is powerful enough to take on movie Thanos. Also, she is the only one Nick Fury manages to send a distress signal to, when the entire universe is about to end. That does mean in the context of the movies, they might amp up her powers. Also, remember, the Avengers are not together, Iron Man is on the planet Titan with no ship and Thor, Captain America, powerless Hulk, Black Widow are the only ones remaining on earth. A superhero from space might be the one to get them together.

5.       Powerless Hulk – Small mention here of powerless Hulk. Hulk has been the Avengers’ go to weapon in case of unmanageable circumstances. With Bruce Banner not being able to summon him (conveniently) we never got to see him properly in play, except when he got his ass kicked by Thanos in the opening. But Hulk is a fan-favourite and we cannot have an MCU movie without the Hulk Smashing carelessly. Also, the original Infinity War trailer shows him in the battle of Wakanda running alongside Captain America (insert screencap). This was not a deliberate bait and switch as most sites predicted or reportedly even the Russo bros. said.  I believe we are going to get that battle again when the time-line is being reversed and this time we’ll have Hulk in full flow.

6.       The glass half full – Most of us were so caught up with some of our beloved characters like Groot or Spidey or Black Panther disappearing that we never noticed the ones who stayed alive. Take a breath and think back on the ones who were (conveniently) left alive in a impartial universe level genocide. Captain America, Thor, Bruce Banner/Hulk, Hawkeye (presuming he is not dead because we don’t get to see him at all) and finally Iron Man. These are the original Avengers…from the first movie. Everyone who came afterwards – Falcon, Spiderman, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Black Panther are all gone. Am not going on a long shot on betting in here that we are definitely through some reality/time manipulation going to get a scene where the remaining Avengers have to go back to the original Avengers 1 battle in New York to get the Tesseract- Space Infinity Stone. Also, some special screenings of the Avengers 4 trailer at some festival in Europe has some fans speculating the same on reddit too.

And finally moving on from the delicious story-wise speculation to factoring in some real-life issues as well. Most of the major actors, particularly Robert Downey Jr. have limited contracts with Marvel to play the said characters. Chris Evans and RDJ have had multiple movies over last 8 years and perhaps the contracts were till Infinity War 2 (as announced by Marvel many years ago). The Infinity war is a colossal event in the comics changing reality forever. Since most of these contracts are about to expire and Marvel’s original plan till the Infinity War was already in place. Marvel/Disney could be using this story-based reason to introduce new actors playing these characters sometime in the future. This could be a cool way of integrating real-life changes into the fictional MCU. A reality altering event will allow other actors to play existing characters.

This happens a lot in comics when catastrophic events are used not only to boost sales but to clear up confusing time-lines, kill-off mediocre characters and introduce new changes. DC has done it multiple times in comics with the famous Crises on Infinite Earths and very recently with DC rebirth. Marvel could also be using this event to finally let go of these existing actors and create alternate realities where different actors play them. Although I have no idea if this final theory of mine, will hold true, it would be a great way of finally letting the actors pass without having to reboot the universe without any reason.

So, what do you guys think? Do you think all of the clues I pointed are #possiblespoilers? Or do you think it’s all just dumb speculation. Go on put on your too-much-time-on-your-hands hats and start thinking!

What else is there to do until 2019?

 

If Nick Fury would have made this call, then Thanos would have been defeated in no time